moreace

Is the TL a touch screenlike teh TSX or just regular because all buttons are independent now?

Raheel

Touchscreen, just like previous TL, Current TSX, Current MDX, Current Accord..

Does Honda even make Navi's that are non-Touch Screen?

moreace

would I ask if I knew silly?
I own an Infiniti
:P
but I will take that as a yes, it will have a touchscreen

boy I am smart, real good at reading between the lines
didn't think old TL had it

Raheel

Well, if you know Honda Navi, THey are popular, mainly for the reason that Honda makes good touchscreens with very good easy to use menus

EmuMessenger

I looked at the FX-35 and the navi system was not great!

oracion

A friend of mine has just bought a new BMW and he said that the Honda NAV is definitely better. The BMW one has no touch-screen and lacks A LOT of local street numbers.

vicpai

......but you're able to select between 2 different keyboard layouts of your choice (ALPHABETICAL as in the 1st generation system, or TYPWRITER-STYLE!! :wow: ) ......AND it is voice-activated as well, with the ability to recognize 293 commands. It's the EXACT SAME 2nd generation unit found in the '04RL, '03 and '04 MDX, '04 TSX, and '03 and '04 Accord. The only 2 exceptions are:

1)The TSX and TL (for now) are the only ones with a larger 8-inch screen. The others make do with a 7-inch screen

2)The '04TL will have ability to recognize the largest number of voice commands (293), whereas the '03 MDX recognized 130, the '04 MDX 217, the '04 TSX and '04 Accord 180!!

Other than the above mentioned, all the 2nd-gen Nav systems in all Honda and Acura vehicles are EXACTLY the same.

The only Honda vehicles which still continue with the old 1st generation system are the '04 Pilot and the '04 Odyssey.

vicpai

....over and over and over, on different forums, IF IT'S NOT A HONDA NAVIGATION SYSTEM, THEN IT'S NOT A NAVIGATION SYSTEM, PERIOD!!.........for the benefit of all of you , I have found this out the HARD WAY (after wasting a LOT of hard-earned dollars )

Overall here's how the DVD Nav systems compare:

Alpine (aftermarket) NVE-N852A : 2nd after Acura system
The 3 biggest concerns used to be the VERY LIMITED WAYS OF SEARCHING THE POINT-OF-INTEREST DATABASE (For example: No distance sort for place names), the VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF CATEGORIES and the lack of a TOUCHSCREEN. Alpine must have heard my rants all over the place. They finally fixed the first issue in their latest release (NVD-A211), making it a close second to the Acura system. However, the other 2 unresolved issues, especially the lack of a Touchscreen, makes it very cumbersome to use with the provided remote control, not to mention that the remote control gets lost all the time when you need it most

The Toyota/Lexus FACTORY DVD Nav systems and the Kenwood KNA-DV2100 AFTERMARKET (both exactly the same made by Denso Corp.) come in at a DISTANT third. I've found several flaws ranging from inaccuracies in both the mapping and POI databases to the unit giving confusing directions at times (graphic on the screen shows one thing and the voice says something else). However the MAJOR SHORTCOMINGS are:
IF YOUR DESTINATION HAPPENS TO BE IN A "NON-VERIFIED" AREA (Non NAVTECH), the Nav system will abruptly leave you stranded without turn-by-turn guidance, when you leave the "VERIFIED" (NAVTECH) portion of the route. You then have to manually navigate, looking at the screen and icon.
VERY VERY SMALL POI DATABASE (you virtually cannot find anything you're looking for. Businesses such as Walmart, Home Depot, Best Buy, Circuit City, Walgreens, Kinkos etc. are non-existent )
NO REVERSE PHONE NUMBER SEARCH FOR POIs
CANNOT OPERATE SYSTEM WHILE VEHICLE IS MOVING (even by a passenger )
VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF CATEGORIES FOR POIs
and most important of all:
"INPUT DESTINATION BY INTERSECTION" FEATURE IS TOTALLY USELESS. A lot of times you may not know an exact address, but you know the nearest cross streets. For example, they tell you to meet them at Hollywood and Vine. There is A VERY GOOD CHANCE that you don't know if it's Hollywood "street" or "boulevard" or "way" or "place" or "road" etc. etc. etc. and same thing for Vine. Besides this you have to know if it's "North" hollywood boulevard and "South" Vine street, or "East" hollywood "boulevard" and "West Vine "street". What I'm trying to say is that there's an INFINITE number of combinations for the PREFIX and SUFFIX that it makes it impossible to go through all of them to find the right one. The Acura and Alpine systems have a very efficient "filtering" method. All you need to input is "Hollywood and Vine" and it will filter the possible combinations and if there are multiple locations it will ask you to select the correct city in THAT STATE. For example I know that the one I was looking for was in Hollywood, CA. BTW, the correct one was Hollywood BLVD. and Vine STREET. .....another example: an intersection close to my house which I know only as being PACIFIC COAST HWY and AVALON is actually EAST PACIFIC COAST HWY and NORTH AVALON BLVD ......it took me a whopping 25 minutes to find this combination on the Lexus!! On my MDX Nav, I just had to input PACIFIC COAST and AVALON and it instantly found it for me! This also sometimes affect the ability to input an address: For example, someone gave me their address as 16913 Yukon Street, Hawthorne, CA. The toyota/lexus unit could not find the address. The correct address happened to be: 16913 SOUTH Yukon AVENUE, which the Acura/Alpine systems found it instantly as you do not have to know if it's north, south, east ,west, avenue, boulevart, street etc. etc.
Listening to all the criticisms Lexus introduced an upgraded Nav systems on the '04 ES330, '04LS430 and '04LX470. I immediately rushed to the dealership to test it out completely, and here's what I found. They STILL HAVEN'T GOT IT RIGHT!!. The "Phone number search" issue has been addressed and the POI database has been increased from 2 million to 5 million (however, a significant number of these POIs are only "searchable" if you know the phone number - what's that all about?? ) ....and it's still way below the 7.7 million POIs for the Acura system and the 11+ million POIs for the Alpine unit. The other issues are still IGNORED.

The Nissan/Infinity Nav systems come in at a DISTANT fourth. While the POI database is decent, the basic route calculating logic is totally flawed. I tried out the one in the FX45, and when I asked it to calculate a route from and address in Los Angeles to one in Denver, CO, it said "cannot calculate the route, address selected is too far, input a closer destination" or something like that!! Isn't that the WHOLE FRIGGIN POINT OF A DVD-BASED Navigation system???? .....and, besides, it's not TOUCHSCREEN. It's operated using buttons. Which stupid person thought of this?? As far as I'm concerned this Nav system is a write off.

As far as the rest of the Nav systems from Mercedes, BMW etc., don't even bother. They are just a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY!! The BMW Nav system on one occassion showed the vehicle 2 miles from it's actual location in the middle of a lake

Sorry for the long post, but when it comes to Navigation systems, I'm very passionate and emotional about them and will take any opportunity to show HONDA/ACURA's extreme superiority over all of them. While, initially they may not look that different (as I wrongly assumed), after living with them and using them on a regular basis, it becomes very apparent that they are not all created alike!!

After all I bought my MDX over the 4Runner Limited I REALLY wanted primarily for the Acura Navigation System. That, in itself, speaks VOLUMES for the Acura Nav system!!

doopstr

Now if they would just release the updated map disc.

Isn't the Acura system made by Alpine?

CLens

Don't you just love vicpai? I enjoy reading his posts ever so much

VtecMW

Not to be funny but you should really start your own magazine, call it "GPS Review" or something? Or, become a Navigation system Consultant. You might make some nice pennies doing that for a living!

My $.02!!

Raheel

Well the 04 TL Nav is not the same, for starters it has XM Radio built into the screen, so you can choose stations, (Accord, TSX CAnt do that)..

Another thing is, the navi has a special drivers option menu in which you can customize if you want alarm chirp, interior lighting, etc.. etc...

And theres many other things that will be different on 04 TL because of Bluetooth and DVD-A

EmuMessenger

Have you seen the 04 Accord? It also has XM with Navi.

Raheel

No I Haven't but I assumed the XM is not built into navi, and you can't change stations by touchscreen, I assumed it is like the XM Radio You add in..

I dont know, I ASSUMED...

Master-G

Yes

weeeg

You must be my long lost twin brother.
I own four different cars and four different Nav systems.
I thought *I* was the most navigation-obsessed person alive.
Back when I bought my 2000 TL I *hated* the Acura TL, but bought one anyway solely because it had the world's best Nav system. I still hate the car and the stupid car is in the dealer constantly, but it still has the best Nav system. Now, even though I swore I'd never buy another one, Acura has an even better system - in the 2004 TL, so I guess I'll buy one.

Let me take this opportunity to just say "ditto" to 99% of your excellent post.
I also feel that no factory nav systems are even in the same league as the Honda/Acura system, but just for "balance" let me throw a few tidbits out there:

I HATE the whole "categories" thing when doing a NAME search with the Honda/Acura/Alpine units. Go try to find the closest Sears store. You'll have to explore dozens of categories and it will take you about 30 minutes. Doing the same thing on a Denso unit will take 10 seconds. Forcing categories on you when you are merely doing a NAME search is the dumbest thing I've ever encountered, they should just list ALL the matches sorted by distance.

Try to find your nearest "Good Guys" store with the Honda/Acura/Alpine units. After 30 minutes you'll give up because you can't find it (because you forgot it is called "The Good Guys"). On the Denso units you can search for words contained within the title, but you can't do this on the Acura/Alpine based units.

The Denso & Kenwood & (new Alpine) all have a very complete list of streets that they know. The Acura system (2000-2003) is very incomplete, as is the older Alpine units.

The new Alpine unit has the same "NON-VERIFIED" AREA (Non NAVTECH) issues as the Denso units.

Check out the Kenwood KNA-DV3100, it's got voice recognition, touchscreen, and 10 million POI. I think it comes out next month.

Mercedes just came out with a new DVD-based Nav system about a month ago for the E-Class. I've yet to try it out, but I'd love to hear your comments on it if you get a chance to play with it.

I tried the one in the new 2004 Jaguar and it totally sucks. It uses Denso software, but the CPU is slower than any other Nav system I've even seen. It actually take *minutes* to do a POI search... I thought I broke it!!!

BTW, do you know of ANY factory system (other than Honda/Acura) that doesn't lock you out while you are driving? I'm pretty up-to-date on my 2003 Nav knowledge, but I haven't tried any of the 2004 models yet (other than the Jaguar).

EmuMessenger

The great thing about Honda is the ability to progrm on the fly!